Adam Turner is an award-winning Australian freelance technology journalist with a passion for gadgets and the "digital lounge room".

Microsoft's iPad killer has failed to win over gadget shoppers and PC makers.

The idea of a stripped-down Windows-style tablet, which doesn't actually run Windows, was always going to be a tough sell for Microsoft. Technically Windows RT is part of the Windows family, but Windows RT devices such as the Microsoft Surface only lets you install apps in the touchy-feely Modern UI interface borrowed from Windows 8. Other PC makers also jumped onboard, releasing Windows RT notebooks and tablets to sit alongside their Windows 8 offerings.

You can push aside the tablet-style interface on Windows RT to see the traditional Windows desktop, but once you get there you can't install your own applications. You've got Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office, although Outlook was missing until the recent 8.1 update. You're out of luck if you want to install your own desktop software like iTunes, Picasa or Photoshop. It's quite a rude shock if you didn't appreciate these limitations before you handed over your money (which admittedly would be your own fault for not doing a little research before going shopping).

You might argue that Modern UI is more than enough to satisfy the day-to-day needs of most people, and you'd be right. Just look at Apple's iPad, it's also a stripped-down computing device and people have flocked to it. "If people would only give it a chance they might like Windows RT," I can hear the Microsoft fans cry. But people aren't giving it a chance, even after Microsoft slashed the price.

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However you look at it, Windows RT is in trouble. Microsoft significantly overestimated demand for Surface RT tablets and the lack of sales saw it suffer a US$900 million "inventory adjustment". PC makers have also been burned, with Asus abandoning Windows RT devices and HTC reportedly scrapping plans for a Windows RT tablet. Some people are even suing Microsoft for not telling shareholders that Surface RT sales failed to meet expectations. Of course Microsoft says it's committed to sticking with Windows RT and the Surface RT, because throwing good money after bad is apparently what Microsoft does best.

So why aren't people giving Windows RT a chance? You can blame the media and supposedly biased gadget reviewers, but at the end of the day Windows RT is simply not what most people want from Microsoft and Windows. Once you explain to people exactly what Windows RT can and can't do, then show them the price tag, they're simply not interested. Apple's iPad won favour because it broke new ground for consumer-focused tablets and because it was aiming to be an overgrown smartphone rather than a pint-sized computer. Microsoft's efforts to squeeze desktop Windows onto touchscreen devices, like the Surface RT and Ultra-Mobile PCs before it, have generally been a flop because desktop paradigms don't work well on handheld devices.

About now you might cite the Surface's many advantages over the iPad, such as a micro-HDMI video output, full-sized USB2.0 port and micro-SDXC card slot. Such features are certainly useful, but Microsoft needs to look at the reasons why the iPad is popular without them. Extra ports are not enough to redeem a device which is seen by many as fundamentally a poor man's computer. The fact it's priced like a notebook replacement doesn't help.

The software giant had the chance to start afresh in the so-called post-PC era, but it still insisted on cramming a crippled version of Windows 8 onto tablets rather than scaling up the slick Windows Phone operating system. The touch-friendly Modern UI was a step in the right direction, although forcing it on desktop users didn't win Microsoft many friends and generated a lot of resentment. Using the same touchscreen interface on desktop and tablet devices seemed like a step towards unification, but all it did was encourage people to see Windows RT as a glass-half-empty computer. Unifying the smartphone and tablet environments, like iOS and Android, would have been a smarter move. People have been telling Microsoft this for years, but it simply doesn't listen.

Microsoft needs to accept the fact that it's a desktop-centric software giant too reliant on the cash cows of Office and Windows to ever really challenge iOS and Android in the handheld space. Fragmenting the Windows ecosystem with expensive Windows-lite devices achieved nothing except burning cash, burning its hardware partners and reinforcing the idea that Microsoft has more dollars than sense.

There's already talk of the next Surface RT, but changing the lipstick on this pig won't help. Microsoft will struggle to make headway in the tablet space until it addresses the underlying reasons why it was too stubborn and blind to see that Windows RT would be a flop.

Do you think Windows RT is doomed to fail? How can Microsoft turn things around?

44 comments so far

Not just RT, it's a GoogleDocs/GDrive cloud based world now as I type this on my Windowless, virus free, Chromebook. No Windows updates, No Windows ripoff and no antivirus software needed, just open the box, enter your gmail address and go to work. M$ Zealots in the corporate world will block Chromebooks at every turn, however eventually managers will see through this and Windows will fade. RT was simply the first version to go.

Commenter

FrankM

Date and time

August 14, 2013, 1:01PM

Your so protected in the cloud. Your private info sitting there one cracked password away from being someone else.

Ohh and chromes great and everything but it can't access certain websites.

Commenter

Dave

Date and time

August 14, 2013, 1:59PM

Dave, You think you are important but really you just a nobody. Even if you dropped your wallet no one would care about your personal information these days. There are 500 million Google accounts in the cloud. What makes you think hackers rate you in the top 0.0000001% of important person to have your account hacked?

Commenter

P

Date and time

August 14, 2013, 2:49PM

@Dave- Chrome and the cloud is MUCH safer than waiting for a Windows virus to start emailing my documents around the world or to everyone in my contacts list etc. I know people who have had their most private documents and files emailed to everyone they know! Great stuff Micro$oft.

Commenter

FrankM

Date and time

August 14, 2013, 3:35PM

Bill Gates once famously quipped words to the effect 'that the internet is a flash in the pan it will never catch on'.

This is the fundamental problem with MS they have no vision of where the future of computing is heading and they play a poor game of catch up using there stodgy desktop windoze systems as there base line.

Once they were the agenda setting organisation and they have not woken up to the fact that they are now left far behind.

Commenter

Classic boy

Date and time

August 15, 2013, 2:01PM

yeah @FrankM, why wait for a virus when you can integrate everything and just, y'know, give it to Google, right?I certainly don't want my email compromised, I'll go with the company that scans all my emails to sell me sh*t despite my NEVER HAVING CLICKED ON YOUR F*CKING ADVERTS.

Incidentally @P, the idea that "It'll nevre happen to me" has always been a popular form of protection. I happen to know someone who had their passport, wallet, phone bill, birth certificate stolen. and someone else who had their car stolen. and someone else who had their bank account drained. and someone else who had their bank card cloned, and someone else who had their credit card details stolen, and there's more.Assuming that because you're not that important does not mean you should assume nobody will take your sh*t. Nor should you assume that because you are personally not a big deal that someone can't just go after 20 million accounts and put all their details online, regardless of the users. Remember - your car can be keyed when you leave it outside the garage overnight by your ex, or by a sh*tbag, but either way, it's still keyed isn't it.

Now I don't worry about the state government tracking my travel on public transport because I'm not that important. but I KNOW that they track overarching passenger movement for planning. there is nothing interesting in my travel, but if someone had it they could mug me. if htey had every single travel history 1000 people could be mugged, couldnt' they? I'm no more important, but I am visible and unprotected.

Commenter

Raida

Location

chewing salty razors

Date and time

September 02, 2013, 12:25PM

Windows RT was doomed to failure from the start by simple economics.

To achieve the same performance as an equivalent Android or iOS device it needed 25G more hard drive, a 100% faster CPU, and then the Windows tax of about $80 had to be added to the already inflated BOM cost. This amounts to an overall cost penalty of about $200 - which few are going to pay on a $500 device.

Commenter

Dr Mat

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

August 14, 2013, 1:05PM

Microsoft can turn things around once they start to realize that the desktop and tablet are two completely different devices. A tablet UI on a desktop - no wonder Windows 8 is a flop.

Getting rid of that goofball CEO Steve Ballmer will help as well.

Commenter

Steve T

Location

Sydney

Date and time

August 14, 2013, 1:05PM

+1

Commenter

Wal

Date and time

August 15, 2013, 7:50AM

Sorry Steve T and Wal who ignorantly to agree with you. This is WinRT not Windows 8, the whole point that WinRT fail is because exactly that, it failed to support older win32 API applications! Company need to re-invest by developing new application to support it.